There are no mysteries into which we arc so fond of
prying as the mysteries of the heart. The hero of the best novel in the
world, if he could not condescend to fall in love, might march through
his three volumes and excite no more sensation than his grandmother; and
a newspaper without a breach of promise of marriage is a thing not to be
endured.

It is not my intention to affect any singular
exception from this natural propensity, and I am ready to confess that
the next best thing to being in love oneself, is to speculate on the
hopes, and fears, and fates of others. How truly interesting are the
little schemes and subterfuges, the romancing and story-telling of our
dove-eyed and gentle-hearted playfellows! I have listened to a lame
excuse for a stolen ride in a tilbury, or a duet in the woods. with
wonderful sensibility; and have witnessed the ceremony of
cross-questioning with as much trepidation as I could have felt had I
been the culprit myself. It is not, however, to be maintained that the
love adventures of the present age can, in any way, compete with the
enchantment of days agone; when tender souls were won by tough exploits,
and Cupid's dart was a twenty-foot lance, ordained only to reach the
lady's heart through the ribs of the rival. This was the golden age of
love, albeit I am not one to lament it, thinking, as I do, that it is
far more sensible to aid and abet my neighbour in toasting the beauty of
his mistress, than to caper about with him in the lists, for
contradiction's sake, to the imminent danger and discomfort of us both.
After this came the middle or <lark ages of love, when it had ceased to
be a glory, but had lost nothing of its fervour as a passion. If there
is here less of romance than in the tilting days, there is considerably
more of interest, because there is more of mystery. In the one, the test
of true love was to make boast, in the other it was to keep secret.
Accordingly, for an immense space of time, we have nothing but such
fragments of adventures as could be gathered by eavesdroppers, who leave
us to put head and tail to them as best suits our fancy; and the loves
of Queen Elizabeth, who lived, as it were, only yesterday, are less
known than the loves of queen Genevra, who perhaps never lived at all.

These amatory reflections occurred to me some little
time ago, during a twilight reverie in the long, gloomy banqueting-room
of Holyrood. It was the very land of love and mystery, for there was
scarcely one of the grim visages which glared upon the walls, but had
obtained his share of celebrity in lady's bower, as well as in tented
field; and of scarcely one of whom any certain and defined adventures
have been handed down. I continued speculating through this line of
kings, blessing the mark and confounding the painter, who has given us
so little of their history in their faces, till I grew quite warm upon
the subject, and found myself uniting and reasoning upon the few facts
of which we are in possession, till I fancied I could penetrate through
two or three centuries at least, and had a pretty shrewd idea as to who
and who had been together.

Scotland has, I think, in spite of its sober,
money-making character, always excited a more romantic curiosity than
England. This, perhaps, is more owing to its peculiar misfortunes than
to any particular difference of disposition. English heroes have been as
brave, and no doubt as loving, but they do not walk under such a halo of
pity; and whilst we pry with eagerness into the secrets of the gallant
Jameses, we suffer those of their English contemporaries to be "interred
with their bones." I have always felt this strongly, and at the time of
which I speak, I felt it stronger than ever. I was treading upon the
very boards which had bounded to their manly steps, and was surrounded
by the very walls which possessed the secret whisperings of their
hearts. From that identical window, perhaps, had the first James gazed
upon the moon, which I saw rising, and fancied that he almost held
commune with the eyes of his English beauty. There, perhaps, had the
royal poet entwined her name with the choicest hopes of his bosom, and
woven a late of happiness which concealed but too securely the assassin
and the dagger behind it. There, too, might the courteous and courageous
victims of Flodden Field and Solway Moss have planned the loves which
characterised their lives, and the wars which concluded them, almost at
the same moment. And there might the hapless Mary have first listened to
the poisonous passion of a Darnley, or a Bothwell, and afterwards shed
the tears of bitterness and self-reproach.

I paced this sad-looking room of rejoicing quite
unconscious of the hours that were passing; for I was alone, and in a
train of thought which nothing but a hearty shake could have
interrupted. Mary, and all her beauty, and talents, and acquirements,
continued floating before me. Her world of lovers and admirers, who, for
the most part, were sleeping in a bloody bed
seemed rising one by one to my view, and I wandered with them through
theirhopes,and
their fears, and their sorrows, even to the scaffold, as though I had
been the ghost of one of them myself, and were possessed of secrets of
which there is no living record.

Many of these ill-fated hearts have, by their
nobility, or their exploits, or by the caprice of historians, received
full meed of applause and pity ; many, no doubt, have sunk into oblivion
; and some, in addition to their misfortunes, have left their memories
to combat with the censure which has been thought due to their
presumption;—of these last I have always considered the unfortunate
Chatelar to have been the most hardly used, and in the course of my
musings I endeavoured to puzzle out something satisfactory to myself
upon his dark and distorted history.

The birth of Chatelar, if not noble, was in no common
degree honourable, for he was great-nephew to the celebrated Bayard, le
Chevalier sans peur et sans tachc. It is said that he likewise bore
a strong resemblance to him in person, possessing a handsome face and
graceful figure; and equally in manly and elegant acquirements, being an
expert soldier and an accomplished courtier. In addition to this, says
Brantome, who knew him personally, he possessed a most elegant mind, and
spoke and wrote, both in prose and poetry, as well as any man in France.

Dangerous indeed are these advantages; and Chatelar's
first meeting with Mary was under circumstances calculated to render
them doubly dangerous. Alone, as she conceived herself, cast off from
the dearest ties of her heart, the land which she had learnt to consider
her native land fading fast from her eyes, and the billows bearing her
to-the banishment of one with which, as it contained none that she
loved, she-could feel no sympathy;—in this scene of wailing and tears,
the first tones of' the poet were stealing upon her ear with the spirit
of kindred feelings and kindred pursuits. We are to consider that Mary
at this time had obtained bur little experience, and was probably not
overstocked with prudence, having scarcely attained the age of nineteen
years. Not only, are we told, did she listen with complacency and
pleasure to Chatelar's warm and romantic praises of her beauty, but
employed her poetic talent in approving and replying to-them; putting
herself upon a level with. her gifted companion, a course which was
morally certain to convert his veneration into feelings more nearly
allied to his nature. Had he not been blamed for his presumption, it is
probable that he would have been condemned for his stoicism; and his
luckless passion is by no means a singular proof that where hearts are
cast in kindred moulds, it is difficult to recognise extrinsic
disparities. Chatelar saw the woman, and forgot the queen; Mary felt the
satisfaction, and was blind to the consequences.

It is much to be lamented by the lovers of truth,
that none of the poetical pieces which are said to have passed between
Mary and Chatelar have been handed down to us. One song would have been
a more valuable document in the elucidation of their history than all
the annals we possess, and would have taught us at once the degree of
encouragement and intimacy which was permitted. Whatever it was, it was
such as to rivet thechains which had been so
readily and unadvisedly put on; and from the period of their first
meeting, we may consider him the most enthusiastic of her lovers.

How long he continued the admiration and the
favourite of Holyrood does not, I believe, appear. It could not,
however, be any considerable time ere he was compelled to return with
his friend and patron, Damville, to France, with full reason to lament
his voyage to Scotland, and with, probably, a (inn determination to
revisit it whenever opportunity should permit. This opportunity his evil
stars were not long in bringing about. The projected war of faith
between Damville's party and the Huguenots afforded him a fair pretext
for soliciting a dispensation of his services. Of the first lie was a
servant, of the last he was a disciple. It was therefore contrary to his
honour and inclinations to fight against either of them, and,
accordingly, in about fifteen months, we find him again at Holyrood.

Mary, it may reasonably be inferred, from her extreme
love of France, and unwillingness to leave it, was not very speedily to
be reconciled to her change of scene and society; a face, therefore,
from the adopted land of her affections, and a tongue capable of
gratifying them with the minutest accounts of the beloved objects it
contained, must, at this time, have been acquisitions of no small
interest. Chatelar, too, had already worked a welcome on his own
account.

Few of my readers need be reminded how insensibly and
certainly the tongue which speaks of that which is dear to our hearts is
stored up with it in the same treasury. The talc and the teller of
it,—the leaf and the wave it falls upon,—arrive at the same time at the
same destination. Histories, for the most part, insinuate that Mary's
carriage towards Chatelar was merely that of kindness and courtesy; but
this, I think, is an inference not warranted by the various facts which
they have been unable to repress, and not even the silence of the
inveterate John Knox upon this head can convince me that Chatelar had
not reason to believe himself beloved.

Let us then imagine, if we can, what waslikely to be theintoxication produced
in the brain as well as the bosomof a man of
an enthusiastic temperament by a free and daily intercourse, during
three months, with the fascinations of a creature like Mary. What tales
could that old misshapen boudoir—famous only, in common estimation, for
the murder of Rizzio and the boot of Darnley—tell of smiles and tears
over the fortunes of dear and distant companions of childhood, as
narrated by the voice of one to whom, perhaps, they were equally dear i
What tales could it tell of mingling music, and mingling poetry, and
mingling looks, and vain regrets, and fearful Anticipations 1 Here had
the day been passed in listening to the praises of each other, from lips
in which praise was a talent and a profession; and here had the twilight
stolen upon them when none were by, and none could know how deeply the
truth of those praises was acknowledged. Let us imagine all this, and,
likewise, how Chatelar was likely to be wrought upon by the utter
hopelessness of his case.

Had the object of his passion been upon anything like
a level with him,— had there been the most remote possibility of a
chance of its attainment,— his subsequent conduct would, most likely,
not have been such as to render it a subject for investigation. But Mary
must have been as inaccessible to him as the being of another world. The
devotion which he felt for her was looked upon by the heads of her court
as a species of sacrilege; and he was given to believe, that each had a
plan for undermining his happiness and
removing him from her favour. If this could not be effected, it was a
moral certainty that Mary, in the bloom of her youth and the plentitude
of her power, must become to some one of her numerous
suitors all which it was impossible that she could ever become to him.
Of these two cases, perhaps, the one was as bad as the other, and
Chatelar was impelled to an act of desperation, which, in these
matter-of-fact days, can scarcely be conceived. On the night of the 12th
of February, 1563, he was found concealed in the young queen's
bed-chamber.

It would, I fear, be a difficult undertaking, in the
eyes of dispassionate and reasoning persons, to throw a charitable doubt
upon the motives of this unseasonable intrusion. The fair and obvious
inference is, that he depended upon the impression he had made upon
Mary's heart, and the impossibility of their lawful union. In some
degree, too, he might have been influenced by the perilous consequences
of a discovery, to which he possibly thought her love would not permit
her to expose him. The propriety of this argument, if he made use of it,
was not put to the test, for his discovery fell to the lot of Mary's
female attendants before she retired.

There is, however, another class of readers who will
give him credit for other thoughts. I mean those best of all possible
judges of love-affairs, in whom the commonplaces of life have not
entirely destroyed that kindly feeling of romance which Nature thought
it necessary to implant in them, and which the usage of modern days
renders it necessary for them to be ashamed of. The readers of whom I
speak will decide more from the heart than the head; and then what an
interminable field of defence is laid open! What strange feelings and
unaccountable exploits might be furnished from the catalogue of love
vagaries! Were Chatelar to be judged by other examples, the simple
circumstance of his secreting himself for the mere purpose of being in
the hallowed neighbourhood of his mistress, and without the most distant
idea of making her acquainted with it, would appear a very commonplace
and very pardonable occurrence. And if we keep in mind his poetical
character and chivalrous education, this belief is materially
strengthened.

On the following morning the affair was made known to
the Queen by her ladies. Had they been wise enough to hold their peace,
it is odds but the lover's taste for adventure would have been satisfied
by the first essay. Instead of this, being forbidden all future access
to her presence, he became more desperate than ever. His motives had
been misconstrued; his actions, he thought, had been misrepresented; he
was bent on explanation, and he hoped for pardon. Thus it was that when
Mary, on the same day, quitted Edinburgh, her disgraced admirer executed
his determination of following her, and, on the night of the 14th,
seized the only opportunity of an interview by committing the very same
offence for which he was then suffering: Mary had no sooner entered her
chamber than Chatelar stood before her.

Whatever her feelings may have been towards him,' it
is not surprising that this sudden apparition should have proved
somewhat startling, and have produced an agitation not very favourable
to his cause. It may be presumed that she was not mistress of her
actions, for certain it is, that she did that which, if she possessed
one half of the womanly tenderness for which she has credit, must have
been a blight and a bitterness upon her after 1ife. Chatelar comes,
wounded to the quick, to supplicate a hearing, and the Queen, it is
said, "was fain to cry for help," and desire Murray, who came at her
call, to "put his dagger into him."

Thus, by dint of unnecessary terrors and unmeaning
words, was Chatelar given over to an enemy who had always kept a jealous
eye upon him, and to justice, which seemed determined to strain a point
for his sake, and give him something more than his due. In a few days he
was tried, and experienced the usual fate of favourites by being
condemned to death.

Alas! how bitter is the recollection of even trifling
injuries towards those who loved and are lost to us! Vet what had this
been in counterpoise to the reflections of Mary? She had given over a
fond and a fervent heart to death for no fault but too much love, and
any attempt to recall the deed might have afforded a colour to the
aspersions which malignant persons were ever ready to cast upon her
character, but could have availed no further.

For Chatelar there was little leisure for reflection.
The fever of the first surprise,—the strange, the appalling conviction
as to the hand which hurled him to his fate,— the shame, the
humiliation, the indignation, had scarce-time to cool in his forfeit
blood, before he was brought out to die the death of a culprit upon the
scaffold.

It has been the fashion for writers upon this
subject, in the quiet and safety of their firesides, to exclaim against
his want of preparation for his transit ; but, under such circumstances,
I cannot much wonder that he should rather rebel against the usual
ceremonies of psalm-singing and last speeches. If he chose to nerve
himself for death by reading Ronsard's hymn upon it, it is no proof that
he looked with irreverence upon what was to follow it. His last words
are extremely touching; for they prove that, though he considered that
Mary had remorselessly sacrificed his life, his sorrow was greater than
his resentment, and his love went with him to the grave. "Adieu," he
said, turning to the quarter in which he supposed her to be, "adieu,
most beautiful and most cruel princess in the world!" and then
submitting himself to the executioner, he met the last stroke with a
courage consistent with his character.

Of Mary's behaviour on this event, history, I
believe, gives no account.

My ponderings upon this singular story had detained
me long. The old pictures on the walls glistened and glimmered in the
moonshine like a band of spectres; and, at last, I fairly fancied that I
saw one grisly gentleman pointing at me with his truncheon, in the act
of directing his Furies to "seize on me and take me to their torments."
It was almost time to be gone, but the thought of Chatelar seemed
holding me by the skirts. I could not depart without taking another look
at the scene of his happiest hours, and I stole, shadow-like. with as
little noise as I could, through the narrow passages and staircases,
till I stood in Mary's little private apartment. As I passed the
antechamber, the light was shining only on the stain of blood; the black
shadows here and elsewhere made the walls appear as-though they had been
hung with mourning. I do not know that ever I fell so melancholy; and
had not the owl just then given a most dismal whoop, there is no telling
but that I might have had courage and sentiment enough to have stayed
until I had been locked up for the night. I passed by the low bed. under
which Chatelar is said to have hidden himself. It must have cost him
some trouble to get there! I glanced hastily at the faded tambour work,
which, it is possible, he might have witnessed in its progress; and I
shook my head with much satisfaction to think that I had a head to
shake. "If," said I, "there is more interest attached to the old times
of love, it is, after all, in some degree, counterbalanced by the safety
of the present ; and I know not whether it is not better to be born in
the age when racks and torments are used metaphorically, than in those
in which it is an even chance that I might have encountered the
reality."—Literary Souvenir, 1825.

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